Bright new mural for Newburgh

CITY OF NEWBURGH — A young girl, her hair and dress flowing, rides the air — one arm stretched toward the sun that rises each morning over the City of Newburgh from across the Hudson River.

Leonard Sparks

CITY OF NEWBURGH — A young girl, her hair and dress flowing, rides the air — one arm stretched toward the sun that rises each morning over the City of Newburgh from across the Hudson River.

Behind her, the ribbons of her dress become a neighborhood whose buildings are rendered in purple. Dark figures lounge on front steps and rooftops, and lean out windows to have conversations.

Both images have now replaced what was a naked cinder-block wall on Colden Street, facing the Hudson near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

That wall is the latest completed project for "Life in Colors," a Newburgh mural series painted by acclaimed Chilean artist Francisco "Dasic" Fernandez.

Fernandez is now in Detroit to begin work on another series. But about a dozen people gathered near the Newburgh mural, titled "Freedom," for a formal dedication Friday morning.

"It's turned it (the wall) from bare cinder blocks that were dark and depressing into a work of art that will draw visitors and residents into the heart of the city," said Sue Sullivan, executive director of the Greater Newburgh Partnership, one of the series' sponsors.

Fernandez, who is based in the Bronx, has already completed three Newburgh murals: on the Liberty Street side of the Ritz Theater; on the South Street underpass between Route 9W and Dubois Street; and on the side of a private residence on Chambers Street.

"Legacy" is the theme of the newest one, and the mural is "there to remind people about what we are leaving behind," Fernandez said before he left for Detroit.

To Mayor Judy Kennedy, art represents "new life" and "new energy" for a city riding a new sense of optimism after previous pronouncements of a renaissance proved premature.

"As we put these works of art out and make them visible and available to people, they connect with that energy and it brings new life into the community," Kennedy said.

Between $70,000 and $80,000 was spent on the four murals. The Partnership, Safe Harbors of the Hudson and Yonkers-based Groundwork USA matched Ford Foundation grant money to fund the murals.

Groundwork USA, which also receives federal funding, works on revitalization projects like gardens and murals.

In Newburgh, it has partnered on a community garden at the Armory Unity Center and on a proposal for a trail along Quassaick Creek.

"This is really a dramatic entranceway to Newburgh," Rick Magder, Groundwork's executive director, said of the mural on Colden Street.